Robert M. Young Online Writings
'Darwinism is Social' 116k
An extraordinary conference was held on June 1982 to commemorate the centenary of Darwin's death. It occurred in a grand villa outside Florence. I was accosted at breakfast by a venerable Ernst Myer: 'You are Young. You are entirely mistaken. It is in my book.' Stuff like that. I gave a paper on which I attacked the distinction between Darwinism and Social Darwinism and therefore the boundary between the substance and the context of science. The argument was conducted as an historiographic reflection, and I managed to say some things about my position with gratifying clarity. The essay appeared on David Kohn, ed., The Darwinian Heritage. Princeton and Nova Pacifica, 1985, pp. 609-638.